Carry You

Auria followed Yang out to a small car with tinted windows and got in the front seat next to her. She pulled up her scroll and used a search engine to find an aura breed store. Thankfully, there were several around the city, though she wasn't sure what all she'd find there. "Do you know where these locations are?" she asked, showing Yang the map. Yang took a few minutes to study it before nodding. "Yep. I can get us there. What all are you looking for again?" "A bird cage then just stuff for a dog and cat." Pretty simple. Though with how strong aura breeds were, the materials needed to be much upgraded. She wasso excitedfor tomorrow. Not having animals around was depressing. She wasn't sure how anybody handled it. She was so used to having a working dog with her a lot of the time. They were rambunctious, sure, but she enjoyed their energy. From what she knew of Weiss, she probably wouldn't enjoy the energy, but it wasn't like Yang would know that. Atlas would've absolutelydestroyedher had she stayed there. Seeing it now... Yeah. Vale would be a much better option for her personally. Weiss would've struggled to adapt to Vale, but this was much more like fae society from what little she was seeing. "How big of a cage you need?" Auria frowned at that. She hadn't considered it. "I'm honestly not entirely sure." She did a quick search and it showed up no dimensions other than two square meters for up to six birds, but just 'as large as possible.' So at least a meter by a meter by a meter which was a little over three feet by three feet... That was a pretty big cage for four. "We might have to build it ourselves." She wasn't sure if there was any sort of store for building supplies or anything. From her view, they just commissioned whatever they needed though for things involving lumber, it took a while since the trees had to be cut down and such. "Oh, that wouldn't be too hard to handle if you know what we need. We can stop by the hardware store." Hardware...store? Well, at least that confirmed her suspicions that there were stores for things like that... Lumber had to be cut down and specifically made to order in Koiria. It wasn't as crazy as it could be thanks to magic, but it still took a little while. She did some searches to find plans for home-built cages and found a giant one that was eight feet by eight feet. That would be more than enough. She reeled it off to Yang who nodded. "We should be able to get all of that. It'll take a little while to build though... Hope you won't mind staying up late into the night to get it done by tomorrow." Auria shook her head. "Nope, I don't mind." She wanted to give the birds the best lives possible, so she would spare no expense. Their diet was weird though. Soaked dog pellets and other things... Well, if anyone could provide them with what they needed, it was her. Captive starlings apparently weren't common here... There were premade diets for them in Koiria since they were so widespread. She could technically go back and get some, but she'd rather not rouse suspicions of how she had pre-made starling diet. "I'm not super handy since I've never done work like this before." That wasn't a lie in the slightest. She had never really worked with wood or anything like that before. "Don't worry about it too much. As long as you can use a hammer, I can take care of the majority of it. I would volunteer Uncle Qrow, but since he's busy with Winter..." Yang shook her head. "Though, uh, we'll probably need a different car." They hadn't left yet so she was glad for that. They got out and found a strange vehicle with a flatbed with the car part attached to it. "This should do. C'mon, let's get going." Yang got into the driver's seat and Auria got in next to her. She started the strange vehicle up and they pulled out of the garage, starting to head into the city. "So why starlings?" Shit, shit, shit, shit. "They're cute and interesting. They're great mimics and are super intelligent. I can't wait until you can hear them mimic human speech." That was about the best answer she could come up with. She couldn't say she was a fae from somewhere else and that she missed them being around her. They were absurdly cheap though... Only fifty lien apiece? That was really cheap. Granted, she wasn't sure of the value of the lien... it wasn't like Weiss had ever bought anything directly. But still. It seemed super cheap to her. The cat and dog felt at least somewhat expensive from her limited understanding of the lien's value. They were much rarer in this world, so they would command higher prices... "I guess that makes sense. You're getting a herding dog, right? There's...nothing to herd around here. Though, I guess I don't have any room to speak... I got a corgi which is a herding dog if very smol." Yang grinned a bit and Auria tilted her head. Smol? Obviously a play on small but...why say it in such a strange way? She didn't really understand. She just shrugged it off. Oh well. Not really her place to question or anything. As long as she understood, that was all that really mattered. "I've always felt a little bit restless. Like I can't sit still a lot of the time. Schnee manor was so horribly boring. You can't begin to understand." NOt that she really did either, but she was relying on Weiss' memories here. It was just long, boring stretches of absolute tedium. Weiss got no physical exercise aside from when she'd been working to perfect her Semblance and practice for Beacon. How anyone could sit for such long stretches was well beyond her. She didn't understand how anyone dealt with that... Ten hours worth of lessons with no breaks aside from meals. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. "I figured a high-energy dog would be the best way to help get me out some." "Well, there's plenty of space out here at least. But don't you want to move into the city more? Getting to the city to get what you need is gonna be hard especially since you don't have a license. Do you think you'll try to get one?" That... was honestly a good question. IF they moved into the city, then she could easily hop on public transit and get what she needed. She was more than strong enough to lift heavy bags, but she wasn't sure what all she'd need... She'd probably need someone to run into the city every week or so in order to get what she needed. They really needed to move... "I'm not sure. The traffic in Mantle was...terrible." She shuddered a bit. They'd needed to head to the airport which was outside of Mantle and all of the noise was something she hadn't liked. She wasn't sure she liked living in the city. She had no room to run around or anything like that. It sucked royally. She was used to her manor houses being out in the country where she had plenty of space to run and do whatever she wanted. But she hated how big this house was and how easily she got lost. It was smaller than the manor houses her family owned but a significant portion, but it was still big enough to easily get lost if she didn't have a guide. There had to be fifty or more rooms easily. ANd that was just the main body of the house. That didn't count the staff quarters and how many people they needed to keep the household running. "It's probably not much better in downtown Vale. Public transit is pretty good, but you need to be in the city to take advantage of it. Would a herding dog be able to be in a city house? Are you going to Beacon or anything like that?" "I'm not sure what I'm doing with myself yet, to be honest." That was the truth, no lies there. She had time to figure it out at least. The SDC provided basically unlimited money, so it wasn't like she had to get a job and hurry to try to figure out what to do with herself. Plus, she wasn't even sure how markets functioned in this world. She had no idea how renting or buying houses or anything like that worked. "I was supposed to go to Beacon but that was just to let Winter help protect me from the scum of the earth that exist in Atlas." That was the truth, at least when it came to Weiss... She didn't have to go to Beacon since Winter didn't need to protect her. She would need to help her navigate the world to some degree, but still... "I mean you can always work for the SDC if you want. You are in the family." "I don't think office work like that suits me too well." Again, not a lie. She was used to working with patients and such. She was a psychiatrist for fae. She was still in training, sure, but she was used to interacting with people. The idea of sticking in an office and working by herself didn't appeal to her. She could probably apply to school to become a psychiatrist here, but they relied on medicine over magic. The science would be way behind where fae science was. She knew that much, so she'd be bored in class. But she would have to deal with learning about medications so... That was probably her best recourse honestly... "I find psychology pretty interesting." "Some of it's taught in Valian schools, but I never considered it personally. If that's what you like, maybe you should go after it. It really just depends on what you want outta your life. All I know is that I wanna be a Huntress like my uncle and mom." The ghost... Could that be her mom? They didn't look anything alike though. She'd have to ask the woman who she was later. She had opted to not follow them and stay behind at the manor. She was just curious who the woman was. Ghosts were not a common occurrence in Koiria, so it was definitely interesting to see how things differed here on Serlia.. "Unfortunately, I haven't been able to study it in any great depth, though. It's just been some stuff here and there I found interesting. It's pretty taboo in Atlas." That wasn't a lie either, at least as far as the last bit went. It was taboo in Atlas from what little she knew. It wasn't like Weiss knew a lot, though, so it was hard to make any generalisations or understandings of Atlassian culture beyond Weiss' very limited scope of experience. But it seemed like it was fairly taboo in Atlas. Something from Weiss' memories popped up: a conversation with one of the ladies about another woman being removed and put into a ward for hysteria. Auria scrunched her face up. "Hysteria is still used in Atlas." "What's...that?" "Being a woman disease, quite literally. It's just a way to put women away when they're being overly emotional or not being 'good wives.'" She shuddered a bit at it. She had learned about hysteria in her historical psychology classes. It had been believed at one point, but that was long past in Koiria. She couldn't believe it was still a thing in Atlas. It was disgusting. Thankfully, they didn't spend a lot of time on it. Just enough to understand the historical context of it. Even in the LIder court which was slightly more matriarchal, women could still be put away for hysteria as it had been so widely believed to be a thing... Thankfully, they didn't have wards like that anymore... Yang made a disgusted noise and turned up the music. That was incredibly curious to her. Fae didn't record music. It wasn't supposed to be a static thing to them. It was living and breathing and should never be recorded. It was interesting to her that humans recorded music and listened to it. "What is this?" "Huh? It's music. Don't tell me you don't know what music is." Yang sounded incredulous. She shook her head. "No, I know what music is. It's just odd to me that it's recorded like this..." Weiss didn't have much experience with any sort of media, so it did make sense that she wouldn't be able to understand recorded music. Granted, Auria didn't have any experience with recorded media either. The closest fae got were pearls which were like scrolls, but they could only communicate with different parties. They had a video element to them, sure, but it wasn't recorded or anything like that. It was just nice to be able to see who you were talking to if you so chose. But fae just didn't record things even though they would most definitely have the ability to do so. She could sense Yang thought that she wasbeyondweird for this, but what else was she supposed to do? It was unusual to her! "Well, we have all sorts of recorded music. All sorts of genres. Do you...not know about music?" "Not outside of certain types, no." Vague wording but it was the truth. She knew about different fae genres, but she didn't know about Serlian genres outside of Atlassian classical... It was the only acceptable genre for Weiss to listen to and perform unfortunately. Frustrating, definitely. It sounded like there was a lot of music that they knew about. Damn. She really enjoyed music. Scrolls could store and play it... "Well, how about we cruise the radio stations until you find something you like?" Yang grinned and Auria nodded. She started to cruise the stations to listen to different types. How interesting. Pretty much all fae instruments were acoustic, so to hear electric versions... Interesting, very interesting. She settled on a rock station, moving her head in time with the beat. Oh, this was pretty nice. Although it was 'classic' rock, whatever that meant. They soon approached the city and Yang drove them to one of the stores Auria had pulled up. She went in and started to look around, finding the cat and dog sections. She put her things in the basket on her arm. She did find the food section and looked at it. Soaked dog or cat food for the starlings... These bags were big. She didn't even know food could be dry for cats and dogs. Animals just got whatever the family ate. They were given carefully balanced diets of cooked food. Yang came up beside her and frowned. "You're gonna feed your dogthatsorta stuff? Zwei, our corgi, gets fresh-made food along with me and Rubes." She shook her head. "The starling website said soaked cat or dog food for the main part of their diet." She wished she could just get the premade starling diets, but that would rouse suspicion. "I won't feed my dog or cat anything less than the best." That was true, unequivocally. She wouldn't want them to starve or anything like that. She knew that raw diets were a thing for some dogs and cats, so she might just do that instead of cooked food... Then again, she wasn't sure what the breeders fed their animals. There were some pretty high-quality foods here. She knew fillers could be a thing based on what Weiss had with her skin and hair care products. High amounts of fillers weren't good. She was mostly seeing quality proteins and some preservatives without much fillers. Until she could get raw diets, this might work well for the animals... This stuff, the kibble, was convenient. Then again, theyhadcooks that could cook for the animals. Why buy something when they had people for this? "Ah, gotcha. You kinda have your hands full, so I can take the bag for you." "Thanks." She smiled warmly at Yang. She picked the best bag and had Yang carry it. They headed toward the back of the store and she blinked, seeing a raven in a small aviary. A number of aura breeders had cards sitting out. She had only planned on getting a dog, cat, and some starlings but... She looked at the cards. Macaw breeders, corvid breeders, the starling breeder, and many others... She wasn't into falconry so that didn't interest in the slightest. She saw an accipiter breeder, specifically goshawks. Whoof, she knew those were a massive investment and not a species to be messed with casually. But a macaw? Yeah, they could live sixty years or more, but she could always take the birds back with her to Koiria. A Vacuan grey... Oh, those weresmartbirds. "Where are the cockatoo breeders?" That confounded her. Wherewerethe cockatoo and budgie breeders? "A cock-what?" Yang looked at her, completely dumbfounded. They were pretty popular birds in Koiria... She was pretty sure they'd come from Serlia, though no new ones had been brought in quite some time, but they had a large enough population to keep breeding without the world of inbreeding. "Never mind." She wasn't sure if she wanted a cockatoo anyway... They were loud, messy, and could end up emotionally stunted or self-mutilating if left to their own devices or ignored. Granted, greys were pretty sensitive too but... Conures were small birds but too loud for her liking. Around a hundred decibels... Yeesh. "Okay then." Auria pocketed the grey breeder's contact card to call later. Though... Hm. There was a decent parrot section with aviaries that were large. Then again, there were rooms in the manor house that would be able to house a large parrot. But being able to control the amount of light a parrot had was important. She filled the basket with foraging and wooden toys, though she knew she'd need a hell of a lot more than that. Natural rope perches were also available which was definitely good... She put her stuff on the counter, then grabbed another basket and basically cleared a decent swath of the parrot section. "By the way, can we get one of the aviaries?" she asked the cashier. The man blinked, looking at everything in front of him. "Yeah, sure. Getting a bird?" "And a cat, dog, and some starlings. I won't pick the starlings, cat, and dog up until tomorrow." Because of Blake, she had a pretty good idea of what parrots needed. She had heard the horror stories of hormones and how that could really put a parrot's behavior out. She could easily commandeer one of the rooms in the manor to put the bird in. They could clear out the furniture and put the aviary in it so that way the bird would have enough room to fly around. The aviary would contain the bird enough when she couldn't supervise it. Though she also did get a bird camera to keep an eye on it via her scroll. "Have any experience with parrots, miss?" "One of my friends has one. A hybrid with a hyacinth macaw. I've never had one before, but I've learned a lot through her." Yeah, Blake loved that bird to no end and taught Auria basically everything she knew. Every species was different, of course, but still. She felt like she had more than enough knowledge to be able to provide for some sort of parrot. She had more than a long enough lifespan to keep a bird. She would vastly outlive the bird and she could always transfer it to her parents for a few years until she 'died' here on Serlia. That was gonna be weird... She would have to 'die' here at some point. But her body couldn't be seen... "You know you should do more research on your own... Getting a—" "I didn't come here to be lectured. If you don't want my business, I can leave." And he would have to stock things back himself. The man blanched a bit and sighed, ringing it all up. It was a pretty chunk of change, but the SDC could more than cover it. SHe just handed the SDC card Winter had given her to the man and he slid it. He looked at the card then stared, dumbfounded, before handing it back. "Uh, thank you for your patronage, Miss Schnee." This was definitely gonna be weird for her... Being such a recognisable figure... She really wasn't sure how to handle any of this. But she shrugged and put it back in her wallet. The SDC would make more than enough that day in order to cover whatever she was buying right now. It would in no way be a net loss to the family. "Thankyoufor having good-quality products." She smiled at the man and they headed back out to the strange car. Several workers from the store were moving the aviary into the bed and Auria got into the cab. Yang eventually got in as well and they headed off to the next store. They arrived and she marveled at the absolute size of it. It was mammoth. "So this is a hardware store...?" It had everything one could ever need for home goods. Sinks, railings, wood, and so, so much more. She was mesmerised. How insane was this... "So what all do we need, Weiss?" Auria blinked and opened her scroll, then showed Yang the list of the cage plans. "All right then." She grabbed a basket on wheels that could hold a fair amount of materials and they scooted around to gather everything they needed. It took a while, but they eventually checked out and headed back to the manor home. By time they returned, Auria could detect faint music coming from somewhere, but she turned her attention to Yang. "We need some hands to help us move all of this in." Auria nodded and asked some staff to help them and it took numerous people to move all of the wood, steel wiring, and the aviary into a room. They took the lumber and steel wiring up to Auria's room while she directed the staff to start moving things out of the room next to hers for the aviary. She told them to set that up while she and Yang started building the cage for the starlings. They didn't talk much during, focused on the task at hand. A knock on the door interrupted them, though, and she blinked, answering it. "Oh, Winter, what's up?" "You haven't come down for dinner yet, so I was worried something happened to you. What...are you doing? And why was I told furniture was being moved out of the room next to yours?" "I'm gonna get a parrot, a Vacuan grey." They were not called that in Koiria, but she had to play by the rules of 'Remnant,' not past eras of Serlia. "So I bought an aviary and decided to put it in the room next to mine. I had the staff set it all up for me. Yang and I are building a cage for the starlings." Honestly, this could probably hold more than four... She wouldn't mind having a small flock of ten or so. It was pretty massive, taking up almost an entire wall in the room. It was about six feet wide, so she could easily walk in. Honestly, it was more an aviary than a cage at this point. Winter sighed but nodded. "Very well. Do you know what you're getting into with a parrot?" "You know that Blake had a macaw." She smiled at Winter, obviously trying to get her to play around. "Ah, yes, how could I forget... You spent ample hours with her to learn." She saw Qrow give a disbelieving look to Winter, but nothing else gave away their little charade. Yang was an advanced aura user, she could tell that much, but she wasn't a high enough Grade in order to catch onto their little deceit. She felt bad for lying, but she would probably be committed to a ward if anyone heard she was a fae. They would think she was clinically insane... "Well, we're almost done here, so we should probably get some dinner. Feel up to it, Weiss?" Yang grinned at her. "Yeah, sounds good." They left their work tools behind and headed downstairs to where they were served dinner. After that, they went back up and finished the cage by which time it was nearly nine. Auria sighed. "Won't be able to call the bird breeder today." That sucked severely. The card said to call no later than about 6pm. She'd just have to call tomorrow while they were in town. If she could pick up the bird, that'd be fantastic... Though chop... She would need to know what all the breeder fed the bird. "Well, I should head to bed soonish. See you tomorrow." Yang gave a two-fingered salute and headed out of the room, leaving Auria alone. She changed into pajamas then curled up on the bed, a bit exhausted from the day's physical activity. She loved being physically active, but it still took a lot out of her in order to do heavy manual labor. But her birds would be well cared for which was all she cared about...